Newsletter Thursday 13th July, 2023

We the staff of St Patrick’s acknowledge the traditional owners, the Kulin nations, of the land on which we learn and play.

We pay respects to the Aboriginal Elders, past and present, who are our teachers.

We thank them for taking care of children and country for countless generations.

Dear Parents, Carers and Guardians,

Welcome back to school and second semester! This term we have many wonderful and exciting things happening. The book fair begins Monday next week , our grade 4 and 5 camps will be going ahead closer to the end of term, our year 6s have a Science incursion and will begin their Winter sport, just to name a few.

In week 2, we have our Family Learning Conversations (FLC’s) families have the opportunity to discuss their child/ren’s school report from the first Semester. These FLCs are to be booked online via PAM and run for 15 minutes. Please ensure you book a time to meet with the teacher. These conversations are valuable for all.

Just a reminder that I am away for the first 3 weeks of Term 3 and in my absence, Lisa McDonald will be the Acting Principal and Donna Ward will be the Acting Deputy. I have no doubt that St Patrick’s will be in very competent hands. I look forward to seeing you all upon my return. Please contact the office on office@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au if you have any questions or concerns.

Take care and God Bless

Meg

Reminders for the following week/Term

B Building Project

The B Block will be completed in the next two weeks and we are expected to be moving in on the 24^th July. We are very excited about this!

The A Block

As you enter the school, you will notice that Temporary fencing has been placed around the North end of the Senior building, A Block. We have some investigations going on at the end of the building which is likely to be happening until the remainder of the school year. Ms Sarah McGill of grade 5SM is the only grade affected by this change. This class and the rest of the school were notified last weekend before our return to school of these changes.

Donations

In order to support our P and F committee, I am asking if there are families and businesses out there who are able to donate items that can be used for future raffles and in particular for our fete that is being held later this year. Not only is this a sign of goodwill and enhance a sense of community, but it will also be great opportunities for your own business to be highlighted at St Patrick’s. If you would like to donate items, please contact the office on 5943 9000 or email office@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au

As always, we appreciate any help that is given to our beautiful school.

TERM DATES

PUPIL FREE DAYS:

These 3 Pupil Free days ensure that we can manage our commitment for all staff to continue to provide activities such as school camps for our students.

Please note, these dates are separate from our 8 Staff Professional Development days. Those 8 days are for our staff professional learning which will focus on Religious Education, Learning and Teaching and Student Wellbeing.

Next week we have our book fair from the 17th of July - 20th July. We accept cash and card and for families that can not visit in person a wish list will be sent home with a portal link to pay through. 

The open times are listed below:

Monday - Thursday: 8:30am - 9:00am

Monday - 3:00pm - 4:15pm

Tuesday and Wednesday - 3:00pm - 6:00pm.

AFL Gala Day - Girls Footy 2023

Such a fun day was had by all the girls at the annual AFL Gala Day at Beaconhills College on the last day of Term 2.

The girls were asked early in the term to commit to and attend some training sessions during lunch times and to also kick and handball a footy every day. The improvement in their ball handling skills was evident as the training sessions progressed and they went up a notch on game day!

They supported each other on the day to build up each other’s confidence and remained positive and upbeat all day. 

There were smiles, tears, knocks, bumps and cheers, as well as lots of mud! 

We thank Gabi who volunteered her time to help coach on the day. The team listened to her attentively and actioned things she asked them to do which meant that the team became close contenders for the game day final, missing out by a narrow margin. We all learnt so much from Gabi.

Scores for the day: 

St Pat's vs Pakenham Lakeside (win)

4.3.27

1.0.6

St Pat's vs John Henry (win)

1.2.8

0.0.0

St Pat's vs Beaconsfield (loss)

2.4.16

0.1.1

There were 2 pools in the Pakenham District who played off in a grand final, with the winner progressing to the Cardinia Division final on the day against the top placed team from the Officer District, who played in a separate pool of games. The team should be very proud of their final placings.

St Pat's placed:

2nd in Pool B

3rd in Pakenham District (based on our total points scored compared to teams in Pool A)

Thank you to all staff who assisted on the day, as well as family and friends who came to cheer the team along at the ground. Thank you also to Beaconhills College who organised and hosted the day, including umpires. 

It was a positive experience for all, with Year 5s ready to go again next year!

Go St Pat’s!

Mad About Science Incursion - By Adison 6BC

In the first week of term 3 on Wednesday we had someone from Mad About Science come to our school. All of the year 6’s got to participate in this exciting experience. The man that came to our school was a scientist and his name was Caleb. Caleb showed us some experiments and we even got to do some! We got to play with instant snow and everyone was told that it was a special kind of substance that absorbs water and expands. After that Caleb did a trick with static electricity with a balloon, he rubbed it on someone's head and made a can move. The next trick he did he used a tea bag and a match first he emptied the tea bag then stood it up right, last but not least he set it up on fire and when it finished he blew it and it disintegrated. A little bit after that we made bottle cyclones. We had a bottle that we would have to try and make a cyclone in the water. A lot of people made one. Caleb showed us even more experiments that were really cool! We even tried to create  our own little tsunamis. We were given a tub of water, a piece of a tablet and a test tube. We had to fill the tube with water and quickly put the tablet in and shove the test tube under water for the experiment to work. We had a great time learning about meteorological and geographical changes. 

Confirmation

Reconciliation

Please remember to update your contact details and any relevant medical details for your child.  

Most medical profiles have now been updated. Please remember to keep them up to date and upload any asthma/allergy plans that may be relevant 

To update any contact details please contact the school office. 

SCHOOL FEES

The Term 3 statments will be emailed out to families soon. If you would like to discuss your fees please make an appointment to speak with Meg.

Have you logged into your PAM account yet! 

We have been using PAM as our main form of communication.  All emails, Student Attendance, Sick Bay notes, School Reports, commonly used forms, excursion/camp permission notes and Family Learning conversations, will all be communicated via PAM.  

Access PAM via this link   Link to PAM 

PAM - Parent Access Module

PAM (Parent Access Module) is our Parent to School communication platform.   PAM will provide real time access to keep parents updated with their children’s progress, important dates and messages. Relevant resources – calendar events, student reports, parent notified absences, absence data and sick bay notes will all be accessed via PAM.

Parents will be able to easily book Parent Teacher interviews through PAM, and access teacher email addresses. 

PAM accounts are linked via your email address that we have in our systems. 

If you have recently changed your email,  please call or email us on office@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au

Click on the 'forget password' link to set your password and then verify your email address.  (Email addresses must be verified for PAM to work properly).  Once your email is verified, your email can be used as the username for your account.

Once you have successfully logged in, you can save PAM to your homescreen on your device.

If you have any issues or need help with PAM please contact the school via email, office@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au

PAM Instructions

Parent Notified Absences via PAM

Once you have PAM set up and saved to your home screen you can easily send in Parent Notified absences.   Please use this platform going forward as this automatically syncs with the class roll.   This will fix the issues of receiving SMS notifications even though you had already notified the school.